A first-term Republican state lawmaker in eastern Lane County fell to a more conservative challenger in the GOP primary.
Charlie Conrad was trailing by a large margin in initial returns on election night, with challenger Darin Harbick holding a 82% to 18% lead.
Conrad, a moderate Republican from Dexter, attracted controversy last year when he voted for a bill that increased access to abortion and gender affirming care. Harbick, who lives in McKenzie Bridge, has said that vote inspired him to challenge Conrad for the seat.
Conrad is a former police officer and Lane County employee. He has said he hoped to return to Salem to work on healthcare, youth mental health and wildfire prevention issues.
Harbick is a business owner who is endorsed by the Oregon Right to Life PAC, which has been working to oust Conrad for a year. Harbick has said he is focused on school choice, forest management and rolling back the law that increased access to abortion and gender affirming care. He has previously ran for governor and US Senate.
No Democrat filed in the May primary. Michelle Emmons, who was the Democratic nominee for the seat in 2022 before losing to Conrad, had started fundraising in the weeks leading up to the primary.
A source told KLCC that Emmons was waging a write-in campaign to secure the Democratic nomination. Emmons did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent to her campaign email on Election Night. Initial returns showed 917 write-in votes in the Democratic primary for HD-12, but the specific names will likely be unknown for several weeks.
